Tania Bruguera during a meeting of activists at the headquarters of the”Hannah Arendt Artivism Institute.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 8 October 2016 — The Hanna Arendt Artivism Institute (Instar), led by the artist Tania Bruguera, began operations in Cuba with a call to “encourage solidarity, always latent in the Cuban people, with those affected by Hurricane Matthew,” according to a note from the organizers of the independent project.

Monday, 10 October, a holiday in honor of the beginning of the wars of independence in Cuba, Instar’s headquarters at Calle Tejadilla 214 in Old Havana will be “receiving donations for the victims in the eastern part of the island,” says the announcement. The collection will be held between 10 am and 6 pm.

The organization says that the “donations of food, clothing, household goods and/or economic aid will be published in a communication from Instar” for the sake of “promoting (…) transparency in all the project’s actions among its followers, founders and the general public.”

The institute has set up a telephone number +5352720282 for those who want more details related to the initiative. More details can be found on the page Instar’s Facebook page.

The Institute uses the term “artivism” to define itself, from the idea of combining art and activism, which results in socially responsible actions, and it carries the name of Hannah Arendt, a political scientist “who studied totalitarian systems, both capitalism and socialism, and their effects on the concept of citizenship,” Bruguera said in a recent interview.

The Instar initiative has as a precedent the announcement made last week by the Cuban American National Foundation based in Miami, about the sending humanitarian aid through the opposition group the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU).

Urban Slums Report: The Case of Havana, by Mario Coyula – 2003

Click on image to open report. The report contains an excellent guide to housing in Havana and its terminology, for example use of the term "barbecue" for a makeshift platform built to gain floorspace.

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